SELECTIONS FROM 2017

Here's a list of some things that I've been excited about this year. This isn't meant to be a definitive or comprehensive 'best of 2017' list or anything (despite the subheadings) because there are a lot of 2017 books that I have yet to read (I am very behind on reading this year): it is merely a list of enthusiasms.

also if you have music recommendations, you should send them to me:

BEST ALBUMS
Land Animal, by Bent Knee
--favorite track, "Holy Ghost": I saw this band live for the first time last week and it was unlike anything else; their music is like some muddy dark gospel that someone dug up from the forest and translated for our modern times, just endlessly inspiring and inventive and dense. The band has an incredible camaraderie live, too, like they have their own secret language;

STAO, by Dun-Stao;
--favorite track, "STAO": this is like minimalist zeuhl filtered through black metal and gamelan and chamber music and a million other arcane influences (+ invented language). You should all listen to and buy this EP to encourage this motherfucker to make more stuff;

The Assassination of Julius Caesar, by Ulver
--favorite track, "1969": "a black metal band that just discovered synthesizers and 80s horror movie soundtracks" - Graham;

Stage Four, by Touché Amoré
--favorite track (TIE), "Flowers and You" and "Water Damage": every couple of years TA releases a new, terrific album, and each time it gets a little more melodic and somehow better than the last; this came out late-2016 but this is my list and I mostly listened to the album in 2017. I hope that Jeremy is taking care of his voice because otherwise I wonder how many more albums it can last. Perhaps the most cathartic 35 minutes of 2016 (2017);

Beyond the Fleeting Gales, by Crying
--favorite track, "Well and Spring": it's like being wrapped in a warm blanket, I don't know what else to tell you, this also came out in 2016 but whatever;

Between the Earth and Sky, by Lankum
--favorite track, "The Granite Gaze": Lankum makes all of their songs sound like myths from long-forgotten eras. Maybe some of them are. See also: "What Will We Do When We Have No Money?"

BEST MOVIE
Columbus (dir. Kogonada)
--A perfect, beautifully-shot, understated movie about the midwest.

BEST BOOKS
They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, by Hanif Abdurraqib (Two Dollar Radio);
Literally show me a healthy person, by Darcie Wilder (Tyrant Books);
Priestdaddy, by Patricia Lockwood (Penguin Random House);
Hotwriting, by Todd Anderson (Instar Books);
The Grip of It, by Jac Jemc (FSG).

I haven't read the sarah book yet, fuck off

BRUTALEST DEATH SCENE IN LITERATURE
Gutted by a tri-antlered helldemon in The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, by Margaret Killjoy (Tor Books).

BRUTALEST OFFSCREEN SUBTLY IMPLIED DEATH SCENE IN LITERATURE
Every scene in The Buried Giant.

BEST LIVE ACTS
Bent Knee (@ Rough Trade);
Sick Shit (@ Punk Island);
Touché Amoré (@ Bowery Ballroom, see above, also it was a Bad Anniversary and this helped to make it right);
Patti Smith (@ Summerstage).

BEST EP ON A CD-R THAT I GOT AT PUNK ISLAND
Field Goal by Field Goal.

BEST ALBUM IN A JEWEL CASE THAT I GOT AT PUNK ISLAND
Softcore by Sick Shit.

BEST BAND THAT DIDN'T RELEASE SHIT THIS YEAR
Blackbird Raum (which doesn't mean that you shouldn't take this moment to go and listen to Destroying or Caspian's side project Scissorbills' THAN THOU, because these things will change your life).

BEST UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS
Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton (now with more hovercars)
Tyrant by Brandi Wells
Lake Humm by Martha Moody
THE OTHER NOVEL I WROTE (String Follow)

BEST YOUTUBE CHANNEL
atmospheric black metal

BEST BAND NAMES THAT I INVENTED (up for grabs)
House Ghosts (pop punk)
Crop Top (shoegaze)
Golgonooza (black metal)
Alphalpha (regular metal)

BEST RISE AGAINST ALBUM
...the one I made up, Hooves, a higher-concept and more allusive version of their mediocre 2017 album Wolves:

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In other news, if you've found your way here without knowing, Palaces (my first novel), is due out on January 16, 2018 from Two Dollar Radio. I'm pretty excited; there's a whole page on this blog about it, with blurbs et al! If you're interested in learning more, reviewing the book, etc, reach out at jacobs852 [at] gmail [dot] com, as ever!

Booksellers, critics, and librarians can request copies from Two Dollar Radio here (available now!).

Palaces

PALACES (Two Dollar Radio, 2017)

The most exciting news: my first novel, PALACES, is going to be published by Two Dollar Radio in January of 2018! You can read the announcement and a short interview with me on the TDR site, and even pre-order the book here.

The book is about power and extremism and property and uncertain futures and a whole bunch of other thorny things. And check out the 70s movie poster-style cover!!

One of my favorite writers, Jeanne Thornton - author of The Dream of Doctor Bantam and The Black Emerald, who I have blogged about extensively, yet not nearly enough - has granted a perfectly-summative blurb:

"In this singular debut novel that reads like a cross between Derek Jarman's Jubilee and an unsettling folk ballad, Jacobs narrates the journey of two Midwestern pilgrims, each striving for ascetic purity both in their possessions and in their emotional lives, as they silently war against the ostentation of the wealthy, the dread expectations of gender, maybe against object permanence itself. It feels like The Road, but with less faith in humanity, and this S. Jacobs is a literary talent to watch." —Jeanne Thornton

It's hard to overstate how excited I am about this: Two Dollar Radio was the first indie press that I ever knew about (my first book was Joshua Mohr's Termite Parade in 2010), and they're based in Ohio, so we have Regional Affinity, and most decisively are wonderful people to work with. Publishing with TDR feels like bringing everything full-circle.

I started writing the book in May of 2013, and did my last substantial edits in April of 2017, so it has been a long road and I'm glad to finally get it out into the world. Most of that time I was consistently working on it, though there were a couple of spans of 2-4 months where I let the manuscript rest. I started writing the book when I was 22, and it has changed along with me: it has all of my formative years within it, as well as my shifting preoccupations. I'm excited for you to read it.

Here's a photo of all the cumulative drafts stacked atop one another, all the way down to when it went by - *shudder* - alternate titles (the very first original draft is handwritten and scattered across a few notebooks):

the many drafts of Palaces

Once more: you can order it here. :)

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8 months ago I had a story published in Joyland called "Let Me Take You to Olive Garden" that I'm still tickled with. I think it's indicative of the turns that my writing is taking these days.

What else can I tell you? Earlier this week, I finished another novel ("finished" a "novel"), which is called at this point String Follow (I don't think the title will change) and is about a group of suburban Ohio teens who begin to experience occult phenomenon.

I recently finished Patti Smith's M Train, which was incredible, enormous in feeling, and long overdue. I used to think that if I lived in New York for long enough, one day I would run into David Bowie. David Byrne or David Bowie. Now I'm convinced that if I live in New York for long enough, I'll run into Patti Smith.

And I still walk past David Bowie's apartment on Lafayette sometimes; this photo is old now but it's still with me:

January 10, 2016